Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You were silent. So was Senator Carr at the time. However, I appreciate that he recognises that the system—and I go to a Matt Knott article—was a mistake. Our government is working swiftly to deal with that so no longer can you offer inducements to sign students up. Our government is also strengthening the debt waiver and revocation process, strengthening the assessment criteria of all training providers and ensuring that, where student debt is incurred, it is in line with course delivery. Under the previous system, there were students who were racking up debt, yet they were not able to log onto their online course.

So we brought in a tranche of reforms, and we are bringing in another tranche of reforms this week. I am confident in this government's vigilance on this issue of the importance of a sustainable and high-quality vocational education and training system to our goals as a government in having a flexible workforce, fit for our economy, going forward. Also, young people and those who choose to change career midlife can be assured that the qualification they are doing is actually going to lead to a job—a job that will be fulfilling and actually assist them to provide for themselves and their families over a long period of time.

I know Senator Carr was looking forward to my getting to the part where I talk about the previous government's system and decisions. I will just briefly touch on that. The complaints did not just start when this government took office two years ago. There were over 30 complaints to the department between 2011 and 2013 when Senator Chris Evans and the current shadow minister, Sharon Bird, were in charge of the system—30 complaints and not one piece of legislation through this place to deal with them! There was nothing stopping the iPad inducements, nothing stopping brokers from heading out to tenements, knocking on doors and offering free education if you just sign on the bottom line and nothing stopping people from heading off to shopping centres to look for vulnerable people to sign up to courses. There was nothing that actually changed the incentives inherent in the system where providers got all the money at the start of a course. We have sought to spread that cost out over the period of the course so that students are working through the course before incurring the debt, and so the provider is incentivised to educate through the course for the qualification.

I will go to some details: in 2012 a student who wanted to change providers had already been charged the full debt up-front. Another student was enrolled in an online course but had no online access and got $20,000 worth of debt. These were actual complaints to the department whilst Senator Carr's colleagues were in control. Another student withdrew from a course before the census date but was still charged the full debt.

Labor was told about the problem over and over again but did nothing, so I commend the minister for dealing with this. I commend the ongoing work in this space. I would also like to commend the secretariat for their very, very hard work in this area and for the production of a comprehensive report and all those submitters who took the time out of their busy days to give us their evidence and to assist us all to get a fulsome understanding of the issue. I look forward to the support of the Labor Party and the Greens for the effort that our government is making to not only maximise participation in this space but also ensure a quality product is delivered to our students and that we are delivering high-quality graduates to our industries. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.